JET - Sanctuary (13 page)

Chapter 18

When Hannah awoke the next morning, she had both her coats over her. Her little head peered out from the folds like a turtle. Jet stirred and cracked an eye open as Matt stood and brushed off his pants, gazing around at the mine buildings in the light of day.

Jet couldn’t imagine the grounds looking any shabbier. Everything was coated with a layer of beige dust, and the ground was littered with discarded bolts and broken tools as well as the remnants of crates and pallets. An exhausted-looking forklift with oversized tires occupied a position on the periphery near two portable toilets she’d missed in the dark.

The buildings were little better, structural afterthoughts near the mine’s entry, a dark aperture in the side of the mountain that looked like a worm had bored into the earth. Rodrigo and Alejandro were near the opening, Rodrigo limping slightly, smoking his first cigarette of the day. Jet roused herself and sat up, smiled at Hannah, and rooted in her jacket pockets for a breakfast bar – one of several items she’d scavenged from her bag. Hannah yawned and stretched, and Jet tore open one end of the package and handed her the bar.

“That’s breakfast, honey. Don’t do your usual act and refuse to eat. We don’t have time for it, and if you don’t eat, you’ll go hungry,” Jet warned, anticipating the battle she had to fight with the toddler almost every other morning. Fortunately Hannah seemed to appreciate the seriousness of her mother’s tone and set to wolfing it down, traces of the strawberry jam filling coating her face as she ate. Jet smiled at the vision and shook her head and then tossed Matt one of the bars. “Here you go, big boy. Man needs to keep his energy up.”

He caught it and inspected it. “Mmm. Prune. Once a fella gets to a certain age, it’s the little things that impress…”

“I grabbed everything I could fit. If you don’t want it, I’ll trade you. I got grape.”

“I like to think of prunes as really wrinkled grapes. Makes them go down better. I’m good.”

Alejandro walked over to them, leaving his brother by the shaft. “Good morning. I just realized I never caught your name.”

“Sorry. It’s Naomi,” Jet said, keeping with her current passport’s moniker. “This is Doug and Hannah.” Matt’s passport identified him as Douglas Hess, his former Argentine identity now discarded along with Jet’s Rebecca ID.

“Pleased to officially meet you. I wanted to thank you again for the help. The car was a good idea.”

“No problem,” Jet said. “All in a day’s work, along with gunfights in the middle of nowhere.”

“Which was impressive as hell, by the way. I think I already mentioned that, but it bears repeating.”

“You know, I was thinking about one thing, though. You mentioned last night that you were attacked at a nightclub?”

“That’s right. We barely escaped with our lives.”

“And then again at the hotel.”

“Correct.”

“How do you think they found you?”

“I…I don’t know. I mean, it’s common knowledge that we’re partners in the club, but the hotel…I figured someone must have talked.”

“That’s a possibility. But there’s another you might want to consider.”

“What?”

“They could have put a tracking device on the car.”

“I actually thought of that. Moot point now, but it’s a good one, nonetheless.”

“True, but along those lines, they could also be triangulating your cell phones.”

“I lost mine at the club.”

“But your brother has his.”

Alejandro’s face changed. “Damn. I’m such an idiot. Of course.” He turned to Rodrigo and waved him over.

Rodrigo reluctantly hobbled toward them. “What is it?” he demanded.

“Your phone,” Alejandro said.

Rodrigo went white. “What about it?”

Alejandro held out his hand. “Let me have it. That might be how they’ve been tracking us.”

Jet nodded. “It’s a definite possibility. You need to pull the battery.”

Rodrigo rolled his eyes as he withdrew his phone from his pocket, flipped off the back, and removed the battery. “There. Satisfied?” he asked Alejandro.

“Don’t get all defensive. It’s a good point. If they have the right contacts through the phone company, they could track us to within a few meters,” Alejandro explained.

“Whatever.” Rodrigo walked back to the mine, obviously annoyed at having been ordered around by his brother in front of strangers.

Alejandro shook his head. “I have to apologize for Rodrigo. He gets defensive. And I imagine it’s been hard on him, watching his car destroyed, being chased all over hell and back…”

“You’re both alive, and you also were in a gun battle. I don’t see why he’s being temperamental. You’re the one who got shot at,” Matt said. “Maybe he just doesn’t like us.”

“No, it’s just been a long night, and he’s in pain. He doesn’t mean anything by it,” Alejandro insisted.

Jet shrugged. “I overheard you talking on the trail. Your father was arrested yesterday?”

Alejandro’s face hardened. “That’s none of your concern.”

“No offense, but doesn’t it seem like a lot of things went wrong in a short period of time? As you say, it’s none of my business, but it sounds coordinated. If it was, then being tracked on your phones is the least of your problems.”

Alejandro stared off into the distance before giving a grudging nod. “You have a point. It occurred to me that we might have a leak in our organization.”

“If you do, then you can’t be certain that you aren’t telegraphing your moves the second anyone else knows about them. Seems like pure luck that you got out of yesterday alive. You may not be so lucky today,” Jet said.

Alejandro’s eyes narrowed as he studied her. “What’s it to you, anyway? Why the interest in my well-being?”

“We have a problem. You might be able to help us. Like I’ve helped you so far.”

“A problem,” Alejandro repeated.

“Yes. We need to get out of Chile. Without attracting any attention from immigration. We’re thinking a boat fits the bill.”

Alejandro considered it. “I see. And what is it that has caused you to have this need?”

“Let’s just say that we ran afoul of the wrong person. Leave it at that.”

“Someone in Chile? I know everybody. It’s not that big a country, population-wise. I could have a word with them – that’s usually sufficient.”

“No, not here. Let’s just say that borders might pose a problem.”

Alejandro switched into business mode. “Do you need papers as well as your transportation facilitated?”

“If they’re high quality, sure. Never hurts to have more papers. Does that sound like something you could handle?”

Alejandro smiled. “There’s almost nothing I can’t handle, Naomi.” He kicked a rock. “Once I get off this mountain, we can talk. I have some obvious housekeeping matters to attend to, but after that, yes, I can help you with this. Do you have money?”

“Some. Enough.”

“Even better. Nobody works for free. It will be expensive to find a discreet captain and an immigration official who will look the other way.”

“I’d hope you could do a good deal, considering what we’ve been through together.”

“Any deal I do will be a good one for you,” Alejandro said. “Don’t worry about any of this. It’s not difficult. In Chile, anything is possible.”

“That’s good to hear,” Matt said.

Jet smiled. “Anything else I can do to help, just ask. I have some skills.”

Alejandro nodded. “Yes, I’ve noticed. But I think we’re close to being done with the dangerous phase of our adventure.”

“What will you do?”

“Convince the miners to give us a ride to the nearest phone, get my people coordinated and arrange for a pickup, and deal with business. Once things have settled, we can discuss your predicament further.”

“What time do you think they’ll be here?” Jet asked, glancing at her watch. “It’s coming up on seven.”

“I’d imagine any time. I’m surprised nobody’s arrived yet.”

Jet watched Hannah get to her wobbly feet and look around. Now that she’d eaten her bar, it was potty time. “I hope you’re right.”

Alejandro rolled his head, trying to loosen up his stiff neck muscles, and adjusted his shoulder holster. “So do I.”

Chapter 19

Mendoza, Argentina

Towering trees shimmered in the wind on the periphery of the home at the second address, a country villa the size of a small hotel, also ringed by vineyards, the nearest neighbors so far away Drago could barely make out their house. He’d arrived a half hour earlier, left his car near the main road, and walked the rest of the way, his bag over his shoulder and his pistol in his pocket, the suppressor alongside it where he could fit it in a matter of moments.

The villa would pose a challenge – he’d spotted four competent-looking security men patrolling the exterior, all of whom appeared to know their business. That didn’t cause Drago to hesitate, but merely to formulate a more involved plan. They’d have to be neutralized in a manner that would prevent the occupants from noticing, which would be no mean feat in broad daylight. Then again, there was a reason he was considered to be the best. Now it was time to earn his money.

The security men stayed outside while he watched, but he couldn’t depend on that. He could just go by what he’d observed through the small binoculars he’d brought. Through the high-magnification lenses, the men’s faces looked like they’d been carved from mahogany, although he thought he detected an air of boredom in their eyes – a positive for him, because complacency could buy him the time he’d need to dispatch them.

He decided his best odds would come from using his sniper rifle, which would be reasonably accurate at up to five hundred meters, even with the wind. Drago practiced with it regularly in the Colombian countryside, so he had full faith in his abilities, and he was no more than two hundred meters away, making for easy shooting. He spent another hour timing the security retinue’s routine and noted that the leader, an imposing man with a head of thick black hair and mirrored aviator sunglasses, tended to stay on the front porch, out of the sun, while his subordinates did rotations around the grounds.

Drago assembled his rifle, affixed the scope, and was watching the lead guard through the telescopic sight, the crosshairs on his temple as a matter of habit, when a stir among the men caught his attention. A handsome woman in her sixties emerged from the front door, followed by a younger one – obviously her daughter, based on the resemblance – holding the hand of a little girl. The older woman knelt down and kissed the little girl on the cheek, and then a dignified elderly man strode onto the porch. Drago didn’t need to guess that this was the patriarch – his aristocratic bearing, shoulders as square as a doorway, his posture ramrod straight, announced him as such even from that distance.

The head bodyguard hurried to one of two white Toyota Land Cruisers parked near the front entrance and opened the passenger door. The older woman moved to climb in as the little girl waved to her, the morning sun shining on her bronze skin, and then the silver-haired man marched to the driver’s side as the daughter and her child returned to the house. The guard tapped two of his men, who rushed to the rear doors and got into the SUV, leaving two to guard the villa in their absence.

Drago weighed his options. He could wait until his target had left, kill the remaining guards, hold the daughter and her child hostage and wait for the aristocrat to return – assuming he would, which was a safe bet since he wasn’t carrying luggage – or he could waylay the vehicle and take on the two guards in the rear seat on the fly.

He made his decision as the SUV backed away from the house and swung around to pull down the long drive. He’d try for the vehicle.

Drago got to his feet, shouldered his bag and the rifle, and moved from his position in a crouch, jogging along the road, putting more ground between himself and the house. For what he had in mind, the quieter subsonic pistol rounds would do: with any luck at all, nobody would hear the shots in the house, and assuming he could take out both guards before they could fire at him, nobody would be the wiser. Divide and conquer, he thought and squatted out of sight of the road among the vines as he screwed on the Heckler & Koch pistol’s suppressor.

He heard the crunch of gravel before he saw the SUV go by in a blur, and then he was moving to the edge of the vines. He fired twice at the rear tire and heard it pop. Brake lights went on, and the vehicle slowed before coasting to a stop. He edged closer as the back doors opened and the security men got out, followed by the old man. All three stood by the tire, inspecting its shredded bulk, and then one of the men swung the rear cargo door open to get the jack and spare tire.

Drago’s rounds punched into the man’s torso – three shots grouped within five inches of each other, he noted automatically with approval even as he swung the barrel at the second guard, who’d barely registered his partner crumpling next to the cargo hold when Drago blew his throat out with two well-placed slugs. Blood splattered the elderly man’s face and jacket as the guard collapsed, and then Drago ran toward him. He closed the twenty-five yards in seconds even as he trained the weapon on the man, who looked like he was debating going for the guard’s holstered pistol as Drago approached.

“Don’t even think about it,” Drago warned in Spanish. “Hands up. Do it or I’ll put a bullet in you. That’s your only warning.”

The man raised his hands. “You picked the wrong man,” he said quietly, his tone confident, his gaze unwavering. Drago had to admit he was an imposing figure even at the wrong end of a gun barrel.

“Maybe so. Get back in the car. Slowly. We’re going for a ride.”

“And if I refuse?”

“Then your lovely wife gets it in the back of the head to show I’m serious. It’s all the same to me,” Drago said, and he could tell by the look on the man’s face that he believed him.

“What do you want?”

“To talk. Nothing more.”

“Who are you?”

Drago motioned with his weapon for him to get back behind the wheel. “The angel of death. Now do as I say or I start shooting again, and once I do, I can be hard to stop.”